Stacy, another New Englander, left the class room at Massachusetts Tech to sign up. Dixon, born in a lighthouse on Nantucket Island, left a billet as junior officer on a South American liner to fly land ships instead. Trotter, from the Naval Academy, was in engineering work in Florida when a blimp flew over. Lueders came in via the ground crew at Los Angeles. Many of the Goodyear pilots were commissioned as Reserve officers in the Navy, and Fickes, Boettner, Lange, Sewell, Wilson, Trotter and Furculow each took a year’s active duty with the Navy at Lakehurst with rigid ships. More than a score of trips were made by Goodyear pilots across the ocean as student officers aboard the Graf Zeppelin and the Hindenburg, getting post-graduate training. The breaking up of the pilot organization began as early as 1940, when with war clouds appearing in the East, Trotter, Rieker and Furculow volunteered for active duty with the Navy. By the middle of 1941, Stacy, Smith, Lueders and Dixon had followed them into uniform, were flying Navy airships at Lakehurst. To fill their places and also furnish material for the already expanding airship Navy, a training class of 19 men was started in late 1940 at Akron and Los Angeles. A six-months’ ground school preceded flight training—which started with seven balloon flights. The training course evolved there was one which grew naturally out of such a situation. Airship piloting had changed from the “seat of the pants” flying of the first war, when veteran Jack Boettner would turn out pilots in six weeks. The ships had become more complex as improvements were made. Helium gas was being used. Navigation by radio and compass was quite different from the “concrete compass flying” of 1916, when pilots followed highways or railroad tracks to keep on course. Instrument flying had come in, and blind flying was part of every student’s training, in a closed control car, operating by instrument only. The modern airship pilot had to know his radio beams and the rules of Civil Aeronautics Authority, be able to ride the beam into the airport. In these various details the Goodyear pilots, long-seasoned, had perfected themselves through years of operation, were competent to pass on their secrets to the youngsters coming in.